My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. (Luke 1:46–47)
PUT YOURSELF IN MARY’S SANDALS. An angel of the Lord appears and gives you the best and worst news of your life.
The angel says, “The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). Excellent news. He continues, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High” (vv. 31–32). Your heart fills with panic.
Mary knew what this meant. She knew she would give birth to the Messiah, the Savior for whom the Jewish people had watched and waited for centuries. Wonderful news! Yet terrible news, for she was a virgin.
Imagine her unspoken questions: “What will Joseph think? What will my parents think? Will the people of Nazareth assume I am an adulterous woman and stone me to death?”
Yet by the time she visited her relative Elizabeth, she was able to sing, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
What made the difference? How did she overcome her fears? At least part of the answer may lie in the attitude from which she received the angel’s news: “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled” (v. 38).
Are you living in that same attitude of surrender, rejoicing in God’s good news to you on this Christmas Day?
Take some time to rejoice, as Mary did, in the Christ of Christmas.
Ron McClung lives in Fishers, Indiana, with his wife, Carol. He has written his weekly column, Positive Perspective, for more than thirty years.
© 2018 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission.
